Rylee sensed movement over her.
“Stay with me, Rylee,” Xander said in one breath. “Stay with me.”
She couldn’t understand why her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
She wanted to say she was tired. That she’d just get some sleep… just for a little while. But her lips felt sealed shut by something outside of her control.
“This is Firefighter Cox, badge 241,” Xander shouted into what she could only assume was his phone. “I need an ambulance on the BQE westbound, near exit 29. Emergency roadside delivery. We’ve got blood loss and the mother is losing consciousness.Please. Hurry!”
The last thing Rylee felt was Xander’s cold hand at the side of her face.
The baby continued to cry beneath Xander’s voice, but Rylee no longer had the strength to respond. All she could do was drift.
“No,” Xander stuttered. “Rylee, you stay with me. You hear me? You don’t get to leave, baby. Not now. Not after this.”
She could hear her heart beating in her ears, but even that sound was fading.
“We just started,” she heard in the distance. “You hear me? We just started.”
And a heartbeat later… everything went dark.
seventeen
XANDER
Xander felthimself nodding off but quickly came to, the soft beeping of the heart monitor doing just enough to keep him awake.
The hospital room was dimly lit. Brooklyn’s city lights shimmered beyond the window, casting a faint glow.
He looked down at the quiet, warm weight in his arms.
His son.
Even through his haze of exhaustion, Xander couldn’t help but smile.
The last five hours had been the most traumatic of his life. That was saying a lot, considering his history as a former EMT and current firefighter.
Xander had never been so grateful for the life he’d lived. The calls he’d answered. The hours he’d worked. His years in ambulances.
Now in his thirties, all those lives led him here.
Because although he’d delivered babies before—during emergency calls, in the back of ambulances—he never thought he’d ever deliverhisownchild… on the side of the road… in his truck.
His eyes moved off the baby and onto Rylee.
Still sound asleep in the hospital bed.
A real-life sleeping beauty.
She didn’t look anything like what she’d just endured.
She looked serene. Beautiful, of course. But more than that, she looked at peace.
Xander inhaled deeply, pressing his free hand to the corner of his eye, trying to stay present.
It had to be after three a.m., maybe closer to four.
The doctors told him he could go home and rest. They’d call when Rylee woke up.
